Never Forget
by DarkClerk
Summary: How did Magneto earn Pyro's loyalty so completely? Just a little speculation takes place just after XMen 2.


Authors' Note: I know everyone is hoping for a continuation of "Not Like Bobby". All I'll tell you is I'm kicking some stuff around. In the meantime, here is some more Pyro. I was very disappointed by how little we got of him in the third movie. He's on screen for half the movie and he gets maybe a dozen lines- Aaargh! But anyway, I got interested in the change in him. How did Magneto earn his loyalty so completely? This is my idea of how it began. Takes place after Magneto, Mystique, and Pyro land the chopper.

Disclaimer: All rights are reserved by someone else entirely. I make no money and gain nothing but satisfaction from writing this.

**Never Forget-**

Pyro looked sideways at his surroundings, turning his lighter around and around in one hand. Not exactly the hideout he expected from an evil mastermind like Magneto. It was just a rundown cabin in the middle of the north woods- a couple rooms, some supplies. He had imagined something a little more like a lair or maybe a cave or something- but whatever. He had made a choice. And the cabin sure as hell wasn't the worst place he had ever slept.

Leaning back in his chair away from the rough kitchen table, he just caught the protein bar Mystique tossed him.

"Eat," She commanded in her strange voice before slipping away- leaving Pyro sitting at the table with Magneto. He glanced at the older man who sat silently watching him.

Well, he wasn't gonna sit at that table all night like a jerk- so with a shrug, John unwrapped the bar and proceeded to devour it. He was starving . . . but almost dying on the frozen ground all alone could do that to you.

When John finished the bar, he glanced around the kitchen again, wondering if there was more to eat- hopefully something other than the sawdust he had just gnawed his way through. Magnetos' sudden voice interrupted his search, "How old were you, Pyro when your extraordinary gift first brought itself to light?"

As a rule, John didn't answer questions- not about himself and not about the past. It was one of the few things he had always appreciated about the Professor; he had never asked questions- or he had never had to. John drug his teeth over his bottom lip, considering the sharp sarcastic distraction lurking in his mouth- but something told him that the crap he got away with at mutant school wouldn't be such a good idea here.

Leaning back in his chair again, he thought back to that moment, lying prone on the linoleum, his cheek throbbing as his father stood over him. . . "Ten." He answered shortly.

It wasn't the first beating- but it would be the last.

_From his place on the floor, John can see the flame under the burner on the propane stove. The fire is high temperature blue with a seeded white middle, sometimes moving to a golden orange. Standing above him, he can see his father, his mouth working angrily to shape ugly twisted words he can't hear- he can't hear anything but the strange furious singing flooding his ears. A siren call both enticing and filling, sweet and fierce. _

_A boot catches him in the side. When he rolls, a second kick catches him in the gut. The pain is sharp, metallic like the taste of the blood in his mouth. Anger floods through him with the pain, burning like a fire. He bites his lip against the sound that wants to escape his mouth. The fire is growling and singing, shouting and crying and calling to him. He stares at the flame- it flickers wildly. Its' song swells with his anger. _

_The boot pulls back once more . . . and the stove bursts into flame. _

_It is the most beautiful thing John has ever seen. _

Pyro looked up from the memory and found Magneto still watching him quietly.

"You were young." He observed and those steely eyes seemed to see straight into Johns' head, clear through to the ugly past.

Hypnotized, John nodded and for once he couldn't think of a single smart ass reply to hide behind.

"I was twelve," Magneto said in his quiet heavy voice, "when the Nazis came for us- in the dark-"

_Someone is screaming, screaming in a horrible high pitched keen like nothing Pyro has ever heard. Jerked out of sleep, he presses his pillow tight to his ears as the sound goes on and on. It jack hammers his eardrums and his skull and his teeth. It scrapes against his ribs to shake his organs. He can't get his breath. The sound is filling up his chest cavity and pressing the air from his lungs. _

_When it stops the sudden silence is like a song._

_Gun fire- rapid and sharp- sounds in the distance, followed by the screams of frightened and panicking children. John grabs his lighter off the nightstand and runs. Most of the school is scrambling through the halls, still in their pajamas, bare feet flashing when the lights outside shine into the hallways. They can hear the helicopters and the shouted orders but nothing makes sense. _

_There are men- soldiers in body armor and night vision goggles. They carry live rounds. Windows shatter. More screaming. There's glass on the floor and lights in their faces that hide the men behind them._

_Pyro remembers the boot in his side and with the clarity of adrenaline and terror sees a sudden similarity in cowards_.

"They dragged my parents away to their ovens while I watched. And I was powerless-" Magneto smiled- a small thin smile full of quiet knowledge, the way god might look when he stared down at the world, "until I wasn't powerless anymore."

_Logan's body lies on the porch. He killed four men with knives that cut their way out of his hands and he's dead on the ground now. John can't see the blood slipping silently down his brow but he can see Bobby, falling to his knees. _

_And then Rogue._

_She's staring at Logan. Her hands are up, trying to prove she isn't armed. The irony of that will strike him later. Even in the ill fitting gloves Bobby loaned her, John can still see her hands shaking. She lowers herself awkwardly. _

_The cops are all around them, their cruisers pulled up onto the perfectly green lawn. They have their guns out- just like the soldiers at the school. Everyone is shouting at him to get on the ground. _

_John watches Rogue drop to her stomach. She continues to stare at Logan, her pretty brown eyes wide with horror and grief. Pyro feels the lighter in his hand, smooth and cool until he reaches the painted teeth and the skin of his fingertips catches a little. _

_He has a choice. _

_Pyro won't lie down. He won't ever put his belly on the floor and wait to be kicked again. _

The older man stood, after a moment, his cape swaying behind him like ocean waves. He paused on his way to the door and touched John gently on the shoulder with the tips of his fingers. "Those of us," He told the boy quietly, "whose abilities have been forged in true adversity know the meaning of injustice as no one else. But it is this darkness that gives us the power and the strength to fight." He leaned down a little, "_Do not forget_."

As he walked away, John snapped his lighter open and took the flame into his hand- feeling the answering fire under his skin, the anger that never left him- "I never will." He promised grimly.


End file.
